Through a Different Lens
by literallyjustanerd
Summary: A series of one-shots depicting Kurt and Warren's relationship across different periods of history. Medieval travellers, repressed Victorians, Millennials just trying to make it work, and maybe more!


There is an argument to be made for the effect of good ale and summer nights on loosening the lips of those who really ought to stay quiet. Tall tales grow taller around a campfire and in the company of friends, and before long, stories are being swapped with all the vigour and passion of fragile egos all too eager to try and impress. These are peasant farmers, given a rare and precious few days away from their back-breaking toils in the fields, and the freedom has gone to their heads and turned rumours that would usually be swapped in hushed tones over candlelight into epic sagas to be swooned and astounded over.

"I swear it to the old gods and the new, there is no way what I saw that night was human. Neither of them," a voice declares, eyes as wild as the bonfire that crackles within their circle. He is met mostly with laughter, though it would seem he has captured the intrigue of at least a few of his friends. This is not the first time this man has shared a story that strayed far beyond the realms of the normal. He is stocky, a proper workman worn in by years of hard labour, with skin dappled by the sun with grey hairs speckled in his black beard.

"Supposing you _did _come across a real, proper angel and demon. What in the name of all that's good would they be doing just passing their time _together_ in the woods, eh?" one sceptic challenges, swinging his cup accusingly at the storyteller.

"That's just it! I haven't even gotten to the strangest part yet."

"Oh? A messenger from the gods and a devil with yellow eyes and skin the colour of cornflowers ain't strange enough for you?"

"Not after I saw what they were doing."

A hush falls over the congregation, part confusion and part apprehension, as the storyteller's gaze falls upon the flames before him, brow furrowed and mouth ajar as he attempts to put his apparent brush with the divine into words.

"Well? Get on with it! We don't have all night to waste on your blasted drunken visions!"

"The demon had the angel in his arms from behind. I could have sworn for the life of me he was about to sink his wretched teeth into the poor angel's neck. I almost yelled out, tried to frighten the thing off, but…"

"But _what? _Out with it, man!"

"The angel was smiling. _Laughing _at whatever it was that foul creature was saying. Then –I can still see it clear as day in my head—the angel turned in his arms and _kissed _the thing!"

Murmurs ricochet around the campfire. Some shake their heads, some roll their eyes, and others exchange weak chuckles, trying to dismiss this as just another imagining despite the deathly serious look on the storyteller's face, the shake in his voice.

"And what do you suppose this means, then? If you really did see an angel and a demon embraced like lovers, what reason did they have to let you see them?"  
"Aye! If they really were what you say they were—"

"They _were! _The one of them had great white wings, and the other had—"

"Yes, yes, we know. But angels and demons can both go completely unseen by man if they choose. So why would they want to let you see them like that? What do you wager the gods are trying to tell us?"

Silence. The storyteller, at long last, is rendered speechless. The uncertainty is contagious, and for a brief period the only sound that can be heard is the crackling of the fire and the faint call of owls from deep in the wood. It is almost a shock when one young man breaks the quiet, as thin and demure as his voice is. He is not an imposing man, slim and on the short side, red-faced from the cold and the ale and draped in a tattered green cloak.

"It is a sign of the end times."

Heads bob in a flurry of solemn nods, expressions espousing wisdom and certainty far beyond anything that anyone in the circle holds.

"Angels fraternising with demons… May the gods have mercy on our souls. Something awful must be on its way."

"A doomed crop."

"The death of the king."

"Another war, for certain."

Theories are exchanged, and by the time they have exhausted every catastrophe they can conjure from their imaginations, even the most steadfast doubters of the storyteller's recount have been shaken by the seriousness of their companions, and are now left to question whether there really is something wicked on its way. They sip their ale, stoke the fire, try to move onto less macabre subjects, and though several ears prick to what sounds like light, playful laughter from deep in the trees, not one of them utters a word.

On the other side of the forest, in a small camp set amongst the moss-covered boulders of the hills, an angel tends a struggling campfire of his own. There are flecks of dirt in the feathers of his divine wings, and blisters adorning his holy fingers. He shivers against the cold with all the meekness and desperation of a human, and his heart surges with the most human of emotions when his love appears beside him, his laugh not the least bit demonic at all.

"They have decided that we are an omen of the end times," he declares, falling to his knees next to the angel and gratefully accepting the warmth and comfort that his wings provide, a meagre shelter from the bitter night. They are not alone: there are several others peppered across the hillside, some who would be likened to the blessedness of the angel, others who would, like the demon, be shunned and scorned as cursed beings. And yet, if the glow of the moon and the light of the fire were to be snuffed out, any clueless passer-by would find themselves utterly unable to tell their idle chatter, their musings and dramatisations from those of the men across the woods.

"Is that so?" the angel says with a smirk, allowing his head to rest on his love's shoulder, his cheek falling against a rough woollen overcoat. He feels the shift in the muscle beneath the cloth as his love nods in affirmation.

"You should have seen the looks on their poor faces, the fools. They were frightened for their very lives!"

The angel lets out a low laugh, poking at a stick on their fire with one hand as the other intertwines with that of the body beside him.

"You take far too much pleasure in their terror," he says, his voice teasingly accusing.

"Well. I _am _the devil. Surely that is my right." his love replies, and presses his lips against the angel's crown of honey-blond curls.

"Do you suppose we will need to move on from this place soon? The villagers are growing suspicious. More of them are catching sightings of us by the day."

It was true, their anonymity had grown more and more tenuous since their arrival. Those of them whose outward appearances were normal enough to make trips into the village to buy food and other supplies were slowly being picked away, the slip of a hood or the errant curiosity of the townsfolk exposing another oddity that would become yet more tales told with fear and morbid curiosity. Soon, the time would come when they would once again have to tear up the few scant roots they had set down and find another small settlement in which to pass a month or two. Their freedom from the pursuit of mobs of self-righteous farmers relied only on how vigilant they could keep. This strategy leaves them all with a permanent lingering restlessness and exhaustion, and a fear for the day the tactic failed them. The angel considers this possibility, and the vague smile fades from his face. Years now have been spent living in the gaps that the commonfolk allowed, in constant readiness to flee. His love, perceptive as ever, is instantly aware of the change in mood, and shifts so that he and his angel are eye-to-eye. The angel has long admired his love's eyes, those deep pools of molten gold that seem to be lit by their own internal flame.

"What is it? What worries you?" the devil asks, and his angel shakes his head as though to dismiss his own worries.

"It can be easy to grow weary of their fear, as laughable as it usually is. The fact that we cannot steal even a single moment alone in the forest without causing people to fear the end of the world…"

"I know," the demon breathes, restless fingers picking at a loose thread in his angel's sleeve. "If I did not laugh at their misguided judgements of us, I would weep."

"Don't you suppose there is any way we could ever live as they do? Unafraid, unpersecuted, with one home, a _real _home, for all our lives?"

The warmth of his love's breath reaches him as he sighs, and, haltingly, shakes his head.

"Afraid not. The way things have been, the way they have _always _been, I cannot see it as possible. Not for us. Not at all." The angel can't be sure –those eyes already shine so much on their own—but he thinks he can hear a catch in his love's throat, and suspects there may be tears beginning in his eyes. The thought plunges his heart through his chest, fills him with enough anger and grief that his breath is constricted form his lungs. And yet, his lips refuse to move, his limbs are dumb to his commands. Paralysed by his own turmoil, the seconds pass in agony, as though everything they had been outrunning all their lives had hit them with all the force of a crashing wave.

Presently, mercifully, the devil's breaths slow, his lips quirking upwards though the expression didn't quite meet his eyes. His fingers reach out, graze the stubble of his angel's chin, cupping his cheek and trying to turn his melancholy into something reassuring: he would move the whole world if it meant lifting the burden that sits atop his divine lover's shoulders, if it brought the light back to his milky blue eyes. There is noise at the centre of their camp, the first few tentative plucks of a lute player testing his instrument and his crowd. The angel and demon turn for a moment to watch as travellers poke their heads from their tents, look up from their pots, their weaving, their sewing, and take note. Some need no further encouragement to abandon their tasks and approach the centre of the camp, in desperate need of something enjoyable to distract from their woes. Others listen from a distance as a panpipe joins the sharp twang of the lute, soon followed by a beating tambourine.

"Perhaps we weren't meant to live as the rest do," the devil muses. It sounds like an admission of defeat, though he feels relief at voicing the thought aloud. "Perhaps this is just what is meant for us. Travelling. Finding others like us and giving them a way to live among friends, as imperfect a way to live as it is."

"You really think we were _meant _for anything?" the angel replies, his words more question than accusation. "If you are to believe that strongly in fate, then perhaps we ought to also believe that we really are what they call us. Divine and wicked. Angelic and demonic."

The music has grown in volume with the confidence of its players, and with it, more campers have picked their way through the clutter of tents and dishes and clothes, and begun singing and dancing, pouring out the little wine they had to go around. Children giggle with all the wild abandon in the world, and it seems that even the cold has retreated somewhat, no longer stinging against the skin and turning wingtips and tailtips numb. The devil grins widely, then dips to press a gentle kiss against his angel's cheek.

"We might as well be. Who can say what we really are? I know I'll not ever understand why we the gods chose to create us so. And if nobody is ever to know what we are, then I suppose we can be whatever we please."

He stands, extending an arm to his angel, who takes it with a warm, grateful smile. It has always been nothing short of a miracle to him how his love can manage to turn his spirits on a whim, to simply decide to move on and leave the mourning and rumination for another time. The effect is infectious, as is the rhythm and the chatter coming from the bonfire only yards away from them.

"Come. What use is there fretting over what they will or will not say?" the demon declares. "The night is young yet. There is wine to be drunk, songs to be sung, and—" he shifts his eyes from the campfire before them to the angel behind him— "there is someone to be loved."

Before the angel can think to move for himself, he is pulled by the hand, led by a twinkling laugh and a sly bounce of the hips into the very middle of the fray.

Limbs entwine under the ivory moon, skin is bathed in the intoxicating warmth of the fire, voices are teased out from deep within to join those of their patchwork family. An unspoken agreement has been reached: tonight, they will banish their own fear and live as the villagers they both envied and feared, as though they had nothing in the world to hide, and everything to celebrate. A devilish tail winds around an angel's waist. Heavenly feathers are brushed over a demon's back. They twist and spin, shout and sing, feel the blood in their veins and the breath in their lungs, and get drunk on the joy of those around them. And as the one man feels, hears, sees, moves with the other, they share one simple thought: nothing on earth could be more divine –or more human– than this.


End file.
